Wicked

by Elisabeth Naughton

  This time he did move. His whole body shot toward her.

  The force plunged the blade in his hand deep into her chest.

  Her blood-curdling scream tore through the land. The ground shook. Lava exploded from mountains behind her. Rivers of red, molten rock rushed down the hillsides, headed right toward them, but all he could see was the blood. So much blood, gushing everywhere. Over her. Over him. Over the ground. Rising like a tidal wave in every direction.

  And everywhere, echoing all around him, the sounds of her torture and pain and death.

  Darkness circled in. A darkness he’d fought every day since he’d been in the Underworld… Too many days to count. But this darkness was too powerful. Too formidable. And the agony in the center of his soul was too excruciating to overcome.

  He felt himself sliding into that familiar state of violence and hatred and rage where he’d been so many times before. Every time he’d lost her. And he wanted it to claim him, wanted to give in to the shadows and darkness where he’d no longer feel anything.

  Where he was the monster and everything made sense.

  “I’m not the hero you want me to be, Talisa. I’m the villain. I’ve always been the villain. I’m—”

  “—Mine. You’re mine, Zagreus. That’s all you ever have to be. Just mine.”

  Her voice, her candlelit face, her words from their last night together all echoed in his memory, shining like a single point of light in the swirling darkness dragging him down. A light he couldn’t ignore. A light that filled him with purpose. With hope. With love.

  A light he would not let go of ever again, even if it meant suffering this torment for all eternity.

  He clawed his way back toward that light. Toward the pain that told him he was alive. Toward the torture he knew she didn’t feel because she was safe. At home in Argolea. With her family. With the people who deserved her.

  The darkness receded. It was like climbing out of a bottomless pit, with hands of ghosts and spirits and ghouls yanking on his limbs, trying to drag him back into the abyss.

  Clearing the edge, he dropped to his back on the blackened ground, gasped in a breath of sulfur-laden air, and stared up at the red, swirling sky.

  His chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths. There was no more blood, no more lava, no more Talisa. That whole scene had been Hades’s latest form of torture, just as he’d tried to tell himself before he’d nearly lost it to the darkness.

  Tomorrow there would be a new, more gruesome torment. Of that, he was sure.

  He closed his eyes, breathed deep, and told himself he could survive this. He could survive anything for Talisa. Because his warrior princess would do the same for him.

  The air changed. The scent of sulfur faded. The ground grew soft beneath him, and all around, something rustled. Something that almost sounded like… leaves.

  His eyes drifted open. No, not leaves. Wheat. Grey wheat rising from the ground in every direction.

  He quickly sat up, blinked in the dull light, and discovered he was no longer on the blackened plains of Tartarus. He was sitting in an undulating grey wheat field, which ran in all directions, stopping at the base of black, jagged mountains.

  An ethereal spirit floated by. It didn’t stop, didn’t speak, just cast a desolate look his way and kept going.

  He twisted only to realize there were spirits everywhere. Filled with melancholy and woe, just floating above the stalks.

  The Fields of Asphodel. Where lost souls lived endless lifetimes awaiting judgment.

  His heart beat hard and fast as he tried to make sense of this new development. He’d certainly never been here before. Was this Hades’s latest form of torment? To get his hopes up then crush them with some new violent torture?

  “Not Hades,” a voice said at his back. A female voice. “And not for torture.”

  He whipped around and stared at the female in the long black gown. The one he knew on site but whom he’d barely spoken to in the last three thousand years.

  Slowly, he pushed to his feet, thankful his legs now worked, and stared at his mother.

  Persephone was as beautiful as he remembered—porcelain skin, jet-black hair that fell to the center of her back, gleaming onyx eyes, and ruby red lips. Being an Olympian, she was nearly as tall as his seven feet, slim and curvy, and more powerful than him.

  He chose his words carefully because even though she was his mother, her allegiance was to his biggest enemy. “I don’t understand what I’m doing here.”

  “Of course you don’t,” she said in that silky voice. “So I’ll tell you. I’m freeing you.”

  Disbelief whipped through him like a tornado. “I don’t… Why?”

  “Because I can.”

  That disbelief turned to shock. She’d always been able to free him? “You never did before. Why now?”

  “Because you never proved you weren’t like him before.”

  He stared at her, knowing she was talking about Hades, yet feeling as if he was in the middle of another hallucination. “But I am like him. I’m just like him. His blood flows in my veins.”

  “His familial blood does, yes. But not his blood.”

  When he only continued to stare at her, wondering what the fuck she was talking about, she finally smiled.

  “Hades is not your father, Zagreus. Zeus is your father.”

  For a second, her words floated around him like clouds, then their meaning hit like a bullet straight to his chest, sending him stumbling back several steps.

  No, that couldn’t be. He was Hades’s son. He’d felt the darkness calling out to him his whole life.

  “You were conceived on Olympus, during my time at home. The Fates blessed you with light, not darkness. When you were born, you were adored and celebrated. But…” She sighed. “Even on Olympus, nothing is perfect. Hera found out about you and convinced the Titans that you were destined to rule all the gods. They tore you to pieces before I even knew they’d attacked. By the time I got to you, all that was left was your beating heart.”

  She stepped toward him, and he instinctively moved back, bumping into a boulder that hadn’t been there before, thankful it could hold him up because his legs felt like gelatin.

  “Zeus placed your beating heart back in my womb, where you grew again. But we both knew you wouldn’t be safe on Olympus, so I hid in the human world until you were born. And then, to make sure Hera and the Titans never found out about you, I brought you to the Underworld where I told Hades you were his son.”

  Holy shit… His brain was pea soup. “Are you saying…? Are you hinting that I’m—”

  “Yes. Your name is not Zagreus. That was the name I gave you here. Your given name is Dionysus.”

  Dionysus. Double holy shit. She’d just said the name.

  She sighed again, looking sad and the tiniest bit contrite. “I thought you would be safe here. I thought Hades would never be the wiser—he’d always talked of having a son. I did not expect him to grow suspicious and to curse you with his darkness. And I never expected that Zeus would turn as dark and jealous as my husband. Much of the feud that exists today between Zeus and Hades is because of you, yios.”

  There was no word to explain what he was feeling except for dumfounded. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “I couldn’t. Hades’s curse was too powerful. The darkness inside you, too strong. If you had known, Hades would have found out, and then he would have been justified in killing you. And if that happened, it would have started a war between Zeus and Hades. I couldn’t let that happen. The Fates and I agreed you had to find your own way through the darkness and back to the light.”

  “The Fates…” Things suddenly made sense.

  The Fates had tried to draw him out the darkness several times. They’d used Talisa to do so. And each time they’d failed, and Talisa had died, her death had pushed him even deeper into that darkness, creating one unending hellish spiral for them both.

  “Yes,” Persephone whispered as if read
ing his mind. “They did send her. I have my own reasons for wanting you to steer clear of the darkness, but the Fates… Well, their reasons were more self-serving. They seemed to think you were the only god strong enough to fix the problems they’d created with their meddling. They used your female, reincarnating her time and again. Until the last time. When her death was so violent, it caused you to sink fully into the darkness where they realized nothing could save you.”

  He remembered that darkness. The unrelenting pull. The misery and pain. The years of emptiness. Just as he remembered the moment he’d seen Talisa across that crowded club and realized…

  He wasn’t alone. Not completely. Not yet.

  “They were wrong,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “Yes, they were. Everyone was wrong about you. Even me.” She slid her hand over his and pulled him to his feet. “We don’t have much time before Hades realizes you’re gone, so we have to hurry.”

  He had no idea where she was taking him. All he knew was that it was away from here. Away from hell. He pulled back on her hand, stopping her.

  When she turned to look at him, he said, “How can you be sure I won’t turn back to that darkness once I’m free from here? That I won’t end up like him? You said he cursed me.”

  “Will you?”

  He glanced over the waving wheat. “I don’t want to.”

  “Then don’t. Choice has always been with you, yios. It does not matter whether you come from the light or the dark. Your destiny is what you choose it to be, not what any of us want or need you to become. Your destiny is what you make it.”

  His heart picked up speed. No, she was wrong. Talisa was his destiny. Not because she had any special power over him, but because she didn’t.

  Because she was the only person in the world who’d ever truly believed in him. Regardless of where he’d come from, who he’d been, and even what he’d done.

  He didn’t know if he was strong enough to stay in the light on his own. But he knew he could for her.

  He just wasn’t sure what would happen when she died. Because someday she would. Maybe not anytime soon—like all the Argonauts, she was blessed with long life—but she would never be immortal, like him.

  “Don’t worry about that, yios.” Persephone’s fingers grazed his cheek. He looked down into her knowing eyes as she whispered, “You are not the Prince of Darkness. You are a prince of the light.”

  His chest warmed at her words. Before he could respond, Lachesis appeared at Persephone’s side.

  He jolted and stepped back, shocked by the Fate’s arrival.

  She looked just as he remembered—petite and wrinkly and frail, wearing a diaphanous white robe and floating inches above the ground. But her aura radiated more power than he and Persephone combined.

  “Your mother is right, Zagreus.” The Fate leveled her glowing blue eyes on his. “Choice is with you. It is true, when you turned to the darkness, when we lost hope in you, the options granted to all the gods faded from your gasp. But when you were in our realm, serving us during those twenty-five years, we sensed there was still light in you. We sent you back with a task. You completed that task when you gave Talisa the Orb and released her from your hold. You fulfilled your destiny so she could fulfill hers. And in doing so, the choice to dwell in the human world or move to the afterlife returned to you that day. You simply chose to stay with her.”

  Holy shit… If Talisa hadn’t pulled him back after he’d been injured in that satyr battle, he’d have gone to the afterlife. He wouldn’t have ceased to exist as he’d thought. And he’d never have known the power of her love.

  His mouth grew dry. “Are you saying—”

  “Yes. When Talisa’s time comes—which won’t be for quite a while—and assuming you stay in the light, the choice to go with her to the Isles of the Blessed or remain in the human world will rest with you. Just as it does for all the gods.”

  When her time comes…

  She was alive. She wasn’t going to die anytime soon. And the only place he ever wanted to be was with her—in this life or the next.

  Excitement shot through every nerve ending in his body, making his skin tingle and his pulse race. He stepped toward the Fate, knowing she was here to take him to Talisa, then faltered when he realized what this was going to cost his mother.

  He turned back to face her. “Hades… ”

  “I’ll deal with Hades. Don’t worry. And I’ll make sure he leaves you and your mate alone.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.” He reached for her hand. “He’ll punish you for this. Why are you risking that for me?”

  A sad smile tugged at her lips. “Because you are my son. I could never be the mother I wanted to be because Hades was always watching. I had to step back and let you rise or fall on your own. It gutted me every time you failed, but watching you these last few years, witnessing what you’ve overcome… It made me realize that anything is possible.”

  She lifted her hand to his face and gently brushed his jaw. “You didn’t love her before. But I can see that the love you feel for her now is just as pure and honest and real as the obsessive, controlling, overwhelming love I have for Hades. Love is about sacrifice, yios. About what it takes and what it gives. And what you were willing to sacrifice proved to me that being in the Underworld was not where you were meant to spend eternity.”

  Emotions choked his throat. Too many to name. When he reached for her, she closed her arms around his shoulders and held him. Something she hadn’t done since he was a child.

  At his back, Lachesis said, “It’s time.”

  Releasing her, he smiled down at her, thinking he’d been wrong about her. He’d been wrong about everything.

  Persephone smiled and gently brushed her fingers over his cheek. “Do me a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “Find your sister Maelea. She’s in Argolea. Tell her… Tell her I’m sorry for nearly ruining things between her and her mate.”

  “Her mate?”

  “He’s an Argonaut. One you’ve probably already met. I certainly wouldn’t have picked him for her, but then I wouldn’t have picked your female for you, either.”

  He smirked, knowing she was trying to make this normal when they both knew it was anything but. “The Argonauts aren’t too fond of me.”

  “Something tells me they don’t mind you so much anymore.”

  His expression sobered when he looked back into her dark eyes. “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes. I made my choice just as you did. I chose Hades and this life, and I would not change it even if I could. I love him. You might never understand that love, but then it’s not your place to understand it. All you need to know is that this is the life I was always destined for. It’s the one I want.”

  He nodded, knowing she meant it. Knowing also that by choosing to stay with Hades, their relationship would likely be severed from here on out.

  “Ziggy?” Lachesis called, using the nickname she and the other Fates had given him during those twenty-five years he’d spent in their realm. “Are you ready?”

  Once upon a time, that nickname had infuriated him. Now it reminded him that anything was possible. Even a miracle.

  Kissing his mother’s cheek, he squeezed her hands and whispered, “Thank you.”

  He let go and stepped back. The grey fields began to fade around him, but his gaze stayed locked on his mother. And his last image of her wasn’t in the wheat. It was of her standing tall and proud on the dark rocky cliff across the field, with the hot wind ruffling her hair and long black dress beneath the swirling red sky.

  Forever the formidable Queen of the Dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Brilliant color surrounded Zagreus as he opened his eyes. Color he recognized.

  Turning a slow circle, he looked over the courtyard of the castle. The Ehrendian castle he’d never expected to see again.

  Evening was just settling over the kingdom. Lights flicked on, shimmering a
cross the cobblestones, the tables and chairs set up for some kind of party, in lanterns lining the village main street, and reflecting off the water in the lake down the hill. Flower garlands were strung all across the courtyard—spring flowers in bursts of pastel colors. And the air was warm and balmy, telling him he’d been trapped in the Underworld longer than he’d realized—at least six months.

  Nymphs scurried around, preparing for some kind of feast, but they weren’t the nymphs he remembered. None wore their traditional short white gowns. Some were decked out in colorful dresses, others in stylish capris and skirts, and all of them—even the silens helping—looked relaxed and carefree in a way he could never have predicted.

  Several of the nymphs even looked like they’d gotten fat. Which was weird because nymphs were otherworldly and blessed with perfect figures.

  Too focused on getting to Talisa to wonder what was going on with the nymphs, he looked down at Lachesis floating above the stones at his side. “Why did you bring me here? I thought you were taking me to Talisa.”

  “Oh, Ziggy.” Lachesis smirked. “You didn’t think a warrior as strong as Talisa would be content sitting in Argolea, twiddling her thumbs while someone else protected her people, did you?”

  “Her people?”

  Lachesis turned her glowing blue eyes his direction. “You are Dionysus, a prince of the light. The maenads are your devoted followers. And she is your mate, a princess of—”

  “Of my life,” he finishes for the Fate, growing more excited by the second as he looked around and spotted Talisa’s father across the courtyard, speaking with—wow—Nick and two of the Argonauts.

  “Is that why they’re here? To keep her protected from Hades?”

  “No. Hades doesn’t know where she is. And the Argonauts are here because she agreed to let them use Ehrendia as a base in the human realm while they search for Maximus, Pandora’s box, and the last element.”

  Of course she had. Because it was the right thing to do. She always knew the right thing to do.

  He glanced down at Lachesis again, confusion drawing his brows together. “How does Hades not know? He was right outside the border of this kingdom. And after I left, the magick I used to protect the border—”